EDIT OBI AL GLEANINGS. 533 



Mr. Symington Grieve has written a " Supplementary Note on the 

 Great Auk or Garefowl (Alca impennis, Linn.)." These notes, we read, are 

 written up to 31st July, 1897. A summary of existing remains of this bird 

 is given. Number of birds represented by the following remains : — 



Skins 79 or 80 



Skeletons (more or less complete) 23 or 24 



Detached bones 850 or 861 



Physiological preparations 2 or 3 



Eggs 70 or 72 



Five reproductions from photographs of preserved specimens of the Great 

 Auk are given as plates. This pamphlet is reprinted from the ■ Trans- 

 actions of the Edinburgh Field Naturalists' and Microscopical Society,' and 

 published by W. Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh. 



Mr. Reginald Heber Horne, Jun., writes in the 'Auk ' on the subject 

 of " Birds' Tongues in Pictures." He has satisfied himself " that from a 

 distance of a few feet, with a strong opera-glass, a bird's tongue cannot be 

 seen between the open mandibles when singing. In almost all drawings 

 or paintings of singing birds one will find the elevated tongue shown 

 clearly. The musical instrument of a bird is not its tongue, as almost 

 everyone knows ; the sounds and modifications are produced in the throat, 

 and therefore why should the tongue be expected to show (except perhaps 

 as a modulator) ? To cut the tongue out of a picture of a singing bird 

 detracts from it, and looks exceedingly strange, solely because we are used 

 to seeing it so in likenesses, but not in life ; but the portrait nevertheless 

 becomes true to nature." 



In this month's 'Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' Mr. Edward 

 Saunders concludes a series of papers entitled " Hints on collecting Aculeate 

 Hymenoptera." The information given is, however, far more than the 

 title conveys, and is, in fact, quite an unique account of the habits and 

 times of appearance of these interesting insects, and based on personal 

 experience and observation. It is a real contribution to the Natural 

 History of Insects. 



In September, Prof. Drechsel, of Leipzig, was seized with apoplexy 

 whilst sitting at his working table at the Zoological Station of Naples, and, 

 in spite of prompt assistance, died within twenty minutes of the moment 

 of seizure. Prof. Drechsel was fifty-four years old, and was for some time 

 Director of the Chemical Section of the Leipzig Physiological Institute. At 

 the time of his death he was Professor of Physiological Chemistry at the 



